A Dessert All By Themselves: Apple Bake

By rebeccatalbotFebruary 20, 2012November 2, 2017 Desserts, Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes

This time of year, I often can’t resist making apple crisps or apple pies, even though the holidays have passed. I surround tender apple slices with layers of flaky pastry or oats, like a fortress of sweetness. Last night for our dessert, though, I attempted something different: a very simple apple bake. This recipe realizes…

A Delicious Valentine’s Day

By rachelvanduzerFebruary 10, 2012December 1, 2015 Featured, Gifts from the Kitchen, Recipes

Over the nearly 5 years my husband and I have been married, we’ve learned to fit things we enjoy into our budget and find ways to make “home dates” special. Here are a few ideas of some of our favorite meals. Simply Elegant Home Cooking Ideas When my husband and I were first married, money was…

Party On

By rebeccatalbotFebruary 3, 2012November 2, 2017 Appetizers, Featured appetizers, entertaining, game day, mango, parties, tomato

For me, as a bookish writer whose idea of exercise is a long walk or a slow jog, the big game this weekend isn’t about sports. It isn’t even about the commercials or half-time. I’m not gonna lie. It’s about the food. It’s about being with friends, too, but friendship is best enjoyed around a…

CAPITAL M

By chucksmithJanuary 27, 2012December 1, 2015 Featured locally grown produce, soup, winter produce

I know this girl that hates mushrooms. It doesn’t surprise me. She hates a lot of the foods that I love. But as I add the finishing touches to latest batch of Cream of Mushroom Soup, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This soup has everything. It has butter, leeks, shallots, Porcini mushrooms, delicate local…

Simply Love

By rebeccatalbotJanuary 19, 2012April 21, 2023 Featured, Salads avocado, sandwiches, sourdough bread, tomato, winter produce

I fell in love rather late in life. We met at The Goddess and Grocer, a Chicago restaurant that was then so small it just had one long, family-style table. I ordered a California Dreaming sandwich and instantly fell headlong in love with what an avocado can add to a sandwich. It’s been a while…

Wolff’s Winter Colors

By rebeccatalbotJanuary 13, 2012December 1, 2015 Apples, Berries, Featured, Seasonal, Winter Squash apples, blackberries, blueberries, carnival squash, clementines, grapefruit, grocery shopping, produce, winter

Winter came early to the east coast this year, painting over October’s vibrant palette and turning everything white. That’s the thing about winter that can really start to get to me: the way that color drains out of the landscape when the sun is shut behind clouds or the ground is hidden in a few-days-old…

Please Pass the Cranberry Sauce

By rebeccatalbotDecember 22, 2011April 21, 2023 Featured, Holiday, Recipes, Seasonal cranberries, cranberry sauce, holiday meals, locally grown produce, recipes

I sat across from my cousin’s nine-year-old son this Thanksgiving. A big platter of cranberry sauce gleamed on the table between us. Greedily, we both stared at it. “Well, my friend,” I said. “Looks like there’s half for you and half for me.” “Not if I get it first,” he said. Cranberry sauce is one…

A REAL CHRISTMAS

By chucksmithDecember 18, 2011 Featured

Down the road from here, a shop selling Christmas trees presents a sign to the passers-by announcing, “Have a real Christmas. Buy a real tree.” This concerns me. If a true Christmas means having a real tree, then every Christmas I celebrated as a child was a fake. And I’m not the only kid whose…

Soup’s On: 4 Soup Recipes

By rebeccatalbotDecember 9, 2011April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Prepared Foods, Recipes, Root Vegetables, Soup, Tomatoes budget meals, frugal meals, lentils, potatoes, prepared food, soup, stew, stock

In my apartment’s tiny kitchen, the whole room warms up when a pot simmers on the stove top. This is one reason I love to simmer soup and stew this time of year. The other reasons are more universal: the chance to load a bowl full of vegetables, the frugality of re-purposing odds and ends…

OH, FLORAL MERISTEMS!

By chucksmithDecember 2, 2011April 21, 2023 Cooking Methods, Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Recipes cauliflower, hardy vegetables

At this time of day, the palest shade of yellow becomes white. It is a white like ivory or the cooked white of an egg. It is the glorious flesh or white curd of the aborted floral meristems. It is the white of cauliflower, the white of the species Brassica oleracea. And to eat this…

Season’s Sweetness

By rebeccatalbotNovember 11, 2011 Featured, Hardy Vegetables, Holiday, Recipes, Root Vegetables, Seasonal sweet potato, Thanksgiving, yam

Did you ever visit a museum gift shop as a kid? Did you ever beg to have an adult buy you a geode: one of those round sandpapery rocks that look homely on the outside, but reveal crystals inside when you smash them with a hammer? That’s how I think of the sweet potato: the…

APPLES PANDOWDY!

By chucksmithOctober 14, 2011April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Recipes apples, baked apple recipes

Any way you look at it, a farm is a business–a livelihood for those interested in growing large quantities of food to sell. But the business of farming varies greatly. In many cases food is grown because it is profitable. People need food. It’s as simple as that. Once in while however, a farmer grows…

THE ART OF PATIENCE…AND SOUP

By chucksmithSeptember 30, 2011November 2, 2017 Featured, Prepared Foods, Soup, What's New prepared foods, soup, stews

Think of your favorite soup… What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What texture does it have? Is it uniform and velvety on the tongue? There is no correct answer to these questions. Actually, I would venture to guess that there are as many different answers as there are people reading this….

September at Wolff’s Apple House

By rachelvanduzerSeptember 28, 2011 Photos

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Secrets Too Good to Keep

By rebeccatalbotSeptember 20, 2011October 27, 2016 Featured, Prepared Foods, Recipes family recipe, fruits, herbs, vegetables

Have you ever tasted a Wolff family recipe? Maybe you’ve sampled one of the family recipes that our chef, Chuck Smith, crafts for our own prepared foods line: the fresh tomato salsa that fills our fridges all year round, or the guacamole that delights customers in summer and fall. But have you ever made a…

A DIFFERENT KIND OF APPLE + Applesauce Recipe

By chucksmithSeptember 9, 2011April 21, 2023 Apples, Featured, Recipes apples, applesauce, honeycrisp, stayman-winesap

As I walk across the Wolff’s parking lot, it occurs to me that it has been raining for days. It makes the atmosphere of the market a little damp, but that doesn’t stop the crowds from visiting the store in search of apples. I suppose it’s part of the experience. It isn’t often that you…

Corn on the Cob, Fresh off the Grill

By rebeccatalbotSeptember 8, 2011April 21, 2023 Featured, Recipes, Seasonal, Summer Produce corn, corn on the cob, grilling

Fireflies. Volleyball. Sandy toes. Lemonade. Grass poking through a picnic blanket. Campfires. Corn on the cob. All of these bring summer vividly to mind, and fresh, locally-grown corn on the cob, with its buttery-sweet crisp crunch, is one of the perfect tastes of summer. Summer may be coming to a close, but all the way…

The Rockettes and Homegrown Tomato Sandwiches

By chucksmithAugust 22, 2011April 21, 2023 Featured, Locally Grown, Recipes, Sandwiches, Tomatoes locally grown tomatoes, tomato sandwiches

There’s this sandwich my grandmother makes. It’s easy to build and very delicious. It starts with perfectly ripe tomatoes. When the summer heat first yields vine ripe tomatoes in earnest, you simply slice them, lightly salt them, and stuff them between two toasted pieces of white bread that have been slathered with mayonnaise. This sandwich…

Celebrate Pennsylvania Produce with Us

By rebeccatalbotAugust 11, 2011 Featured, Locally Grown, Seasonal apples, basil, pears, Pennsylvania, plums, produce month, sweet corn, tomatoes, watermelon

Did you know Pennsylvania produce has its own month? At Wolff’s Apple House every month is a month to celebrate produce, but in August it’s official! This year is the sixth year running that the Commonwealth has designated August as Pennsylvania Produce Month. It makes sense—the quality and availability of locally grown produce is at…

Hot Summer, Frozen Fruit

By chucksmithAugust 7, 2011April 21, 2023 Berries, Cooking Methods, Desserts, Featured, Recipes, Seasonal berries, frozen desserts, ice pops, local ingredients, melons, paletas, peaches, plums, strawberries

In one attempt to remove refined sugar from my family’s diet, I decided to make my own frozen desserts instead of purchasing pre-made ice pops. Many frozen ice pops in the supermarket include corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. And while there is much to be said for the nostalgia that goes…